


Hang the Human Heart

by Kiltedsquirrel



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Eventual Sex, F/M, Novel, Plot, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-19 17:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5975335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiltedsquirrel/pseuds/Kiltedsquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully search desperately for a 10 year old boy they believe to be their son, William. Will the emotional pursuit prove successful, or will they hang their hearts...for a hoax?<br/>***<br/>"Wh-What?" asked William, looking up apprehensively.</p><p>Skinner wasn’t aware he'd spoken aloud.</p><p>"You said 'Scully', well who’s he?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Friday May 20th, 2011

Grace

Wyoming

 

Walter Skinner wasn't a man who thought about things in lacy, poetic expressions: the sky was big - plain and simple, bigger looking than he'd seen it in a long time. The clouds seemed to move with unnatural speed across it too, but then there was no concrete skyline here to obscure the view of their journey. His first reaction on reaching this part of Wyoming was that it looked like a neutron bomb had gone off. In the old, low rise brick buildings he saw the remains of another era while even the modern prefabricated structures looked forgotten about. Pedestrians on the street were few, but in abundance were the muscular, beefy wheeled cars stationed in all areas of undeveloped waste ground.

The small town of Grace had opened gradually and continued to spread out slowly across a large, dried-up landscape. Crossing from one side to the other on foot would easily have taken half a day for someone of a child's size and yet the population didn't touch far above 8000. Beyond its fringe of budget inns and gas stations stretched some of the most expansive and desolate prairie lands in America. Freightliner trucks and 1/2 ton pickups thundered through the artery highways and past unchanging views of brittle grass and discolored sagebrush. Downtown, Grace's empty roads themselves looked straight and wide enough to land small aircraft. There was no busy street scene, no congestion or hawkers: a Bank of the West branch and an ornate church; a sports store, gunsmiths, a florist, shops for lease and a diner advertising buffalo burgers.

Skinner braked heavily in front of the Grace Police Department. He removed his glasses briefly and wiped his tired eyes. He hadn't seen a bed in over 48 hours and had flown coach in a three-stop flight to mask his movements. Silently his fingers unfolded the nondescript piece of paper delivered to him at his apartment building. The creased fold in the note was starting to wear thin from the many times he'd looked at it. The anonymous typescript didn't disclose much information: a child's name and a location. WILLIAM SPENDER. GRACE, WY. What had accompanied it, however, was far more remarkable - a disc with hard to believe footage. The Chinese kid from the local takeout had inadvertently dropped it off with his meal three nights previously. Skinner had tried calling the restaurant for more information but they were completely baffled. He could hear the poor delivery boy being clouted for good measure down the line anyway and complimentary prawn crackers were biked around at once.

He'd watched on his home computer the simple piece of film which showed two children playing on a swing. On first appearances it looked like nothing out of the ordinary - harmless country kids talking and laughing in the distance while the log pendulum carrying the younger child swung to and fro. He watched the recording again, knowing he must be missing something but unable to identify what exactly. On his third viewing, Skinner saw it: the steady and rising momentum of the swing; the inactivity of the child riding it as it rose higher and higher; the stillness in the grass and leaves in the foreground. The swing was moving on its own. He looked at the brown haired boy sitting on the low hillside and saw that as his laughs soared, so did his friend. Skinner had lost count of how many times he watched the footage again that night.

The one advantage he found to tracking down a minor was that Monday to Friday they were conveniently herded into one of three locations in this town: John S. Taylor, Mount Hope or Christ the King elementary schools. His visit to the first school had been met with enthusiasm and he was mistakenly greeted as Mr. Fields the music teacher. After the situation had been explained, Skinner was promptly provided with coffee and every variation and spin on the child's name he sought: Willie Spicer, Liam Snyder, Wilson Speeding, Wiley Spakes, Spencer Williamson, Billy Sanders and Willis Lender. Skinner shook his head time and time again. The Principal apologized, wished that she could have been a better help before looking at him with a smile and a hope - could Mr. Skinner even manage to play a little piano?

Mount Hope School apparently had a sweet little girl in their kindergarten called Willa Spence. Skinner had again shaken his head, exasperated, impatient, and then left speechless as the secretary preceded to shepherd the pig-tailed child out to cough and sneeze over his Italian leather shoes. He'd left with a crayon picture of a kitty-cat.

By the time he found the final school the building was in darkness, its gates in chains. A middle-aged woman with a well hair-sprayed bun was getting into the last car in the parking lot. "You just caught me," smiled the Principal of Christ the King and checked her wristwatch, "I hope you know that if your child is on the rafting trip, they're not due back until after seven." She dropped her car keys when Skinner produced his ID.

The school administration office was unlocked minutes later and lights thrown on. The Principal abandoned her handbag and jammed a small key into the room's central filing cabinet. She knew the boy. "He's a poor attendee," she began in explanation and removed an especially thick record from the steel cabinet. "Bit of a history...," she divulged, slipping on her reading glasses. She had an address. She had two addresses. Could she see Mr. Skinner's FBI identification one last time?

Skinner had been in Grace several hours and was already struggling to get to grips with the reality of the child's life. Whenever he picked up his phone and located Fox Mulder's name, the very ground seemed to tilt and he debated hard over the best course of action.

The initial address recorded in the child's file had taken him to the tiny town of Beeswing on Grace's eastern border. He knew on seconds of arrival that it wasn't the place he was looking for. It was a quaint, crumbling building with wild flowers splitting through cracks in the wooden porch and window ledges. He gave the thin, peeling door a swift 'thunk' with his shoulder and, looking around the damp and darkened house, confirmed quickly that it was deserted. He called the boy's name just in case and checked upstairs before leaving. In one room he found a collection of lumpy candles, broken glass bottles and cigarette ends, and decided to enlist a handyman to secure the doors against any potential tramps or travelers. He didn't want the child returning at some point and encountering trouble.

The second address had a police vehicle waiting outside. Curtains twitched from the surrounding homes and one nearby neighbor was loitering on his lawn, garden hose drowning the grass, as his neck craned over to the house Skinner walked up to. The chalk faced young officer he met inside filled him in as best he could, "I just came on shift. I can't believe something like this has happened."

Skinner, his mind numb with shock, was introduced to the foster parents next: a grim faced man wringing a tie in his hands who loudly questioned God for delivering them such a boy, and a woman with a blue ribbon rosette on her lap who sobbed, "the little monster," into her handkerchief over and over again. The pounding in his chest didn't stop.

Skinner’s fingers tapped tensely on his cellular phone case as he waited outside the Sheriff’s department. If he called Mulder and Scully and this whole thing turned out to be a hoax, a set-up, someone yanking his chain, then he would be dealing them a devastating and pointless blow. He wouldn't be able to put the genie back in the bottle. Deciding he needed far more assurance before making that call, he shoved the phone back in his pocket.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Friday, May 20th 2011

The Unremarkable House

Virginia

 

Mulder propped a bronzed arm on the pillow, his eyes following Scully’s movements around the bedroom. “Something light,” he said when she reached for a lipstick. She chose a deep shade of red instead. Like a small girl watching her mother go out for the evening, he studied her little rituals with an odd match of wonder and woe. They'd spent a good deal of time abroad that month, observing a difficult and emotional occasion, and now Scully needed to put in some added hours at work. It was just a conference, she told him. Dinner, really, and then she’d be home. But she rarely went out at night without him, and he rarely had to settle for frozen pizza. Well he damn well wasn’t going to use a plate.

She passed by the bed again, this time giving him a flash of a smile. It lit up her face, it always did, and it lit up his heart, it always had. Lately those smiles had become absent and like rain on the hard desert floor it was a welcome relief to see. Mulder wondered if perhaps the break overseas hadn't been such a complete failure after all. Certainly working through their problems had been no easy game of Tetris - the pieces didn't drop and click back into place like he would’ve hoped. There were still holes and gaps that couldn't be accessed, but that said, this week was starting to feel kinder, more normal - if normal was such a thing. Maybe, he thought, they were finally ready to get past this. Maybe they had a young son who was growing up, who was turning 10 somewhere, and maybe, just maybe, that was ok. Mulder sighed quietly and tried to encourage her spirits with a smile of his own.

Her hair was loose and still damp from the shower and her peachy suntan glowed from the water's steam. She was in a rush to get ready, which was what he hoped explained the three buttons still left undone on her shirt. He frowned as it gaped alluringly and when she leaned over to the mirror, black lace blinked from her flushed cleavage. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the view, but rather, he didn't need for it to be enjoyed by the new Pediatric consultant from Rome. Mulder cleared his throat, pausing to think of something diplomatic to say. His wardrobe counsel was rarely received well, especially those recommendations made to high collars and baggy pants. “It’s actually pretty chilly out tonight so…” Scully looked over at him quizzically and pulled the drape back for a moment, quickly having to shield her eyes from the glare of evening sunlight. “Never mind,” he mumbled and took his frustration out on some decorated cushions. “Why do we have all these...,” he gestured irritably, “little pillows piled up everywhere? There’s not one a *man* can use…this tiny scratchy one has a smell…”

“It’s fragranced, and I think they call it ‘bed styling’,” she explained, distracted with her earrings. “And I’ve asked you to put them in the linen ottoman before you get in bed.”

He made a face showing he had no idea what or where that was. “You know what makes the bed look better…you, here.” Mulder patted the space beside him. He thought he saw her smile a little in the mirror which was a surprising boost to his chances. Even when tousled, she had the ability to look immaculate and for the next few minutes Mulder stared, silent eyes covering the curve of hip, breast and mouth. Her smile wasn't the only thing he hadn't seen a lot of lately. “Hey Scully…,” she was spraying perfume in all the right places, “…it’s my birthday today, Scully,” he said thickly, eyes slipping closed as he inhaled the scent.

“No, no it isn’t Mulder.” She gave him a quick look from the mirror and saw his hips shift unconsciously, a small movement, but she caught it - the slight thrust under the blanket. “Your birthday is October 13th, and I’m running late as it is.” She watched him check his watch and sigh, tapping the glass face to see if that would make a difference.

“I can be…timely.”

She scoffed softly, “Mulder, giant pandas mate faster than you do.”

He grinned and tried unsuccessfully to catch her eye again. She’d managed to locate one high heel and was seeking out its pair while complaining about ‘the path of Mulder’ - her name for the trail of shoes and clothes he shed en route to the bed. “I mean it’s worse than keeping a dog.” A sock hit him in the chest. He watched as she scanned the room irritably for her shoe then lowered his amused smile to pick half-heartedly through a nearby magazine. Minutes later, a shadow fell across the page.

Mulder slowly raised his head. “Hi,” he smiled. It wasn’t returned. “Something wrong, Scully?”

“I-I don’t believe it. You’ve done it again, haven’t you?” He blinked innocently up at her and she stuck her hands on her hips. “You’ve hidden my shoe!”

Suppressing another smile, Mulder lowered himself back into the article. “You might wanna be more careful with your things, Cinderelly…,” he chided quietly, leafing casually through another few pages.

She sighed with exasperation. “Give it up Mulder, you’re not funny and that’s a medical periodical, I know you’re not really reading that.”

But still he kept her waiting, defiantly mouthing the words “meningococcal mutations.”

She gave him a look.

He kept right on talking. "Did you know that the first high heeled shoes introduced into America were imported from brothels in Paris? And that nearly two centuries earlier, the English parliament punished women as witches for using high heels to seduce men into marrying them. Some even compared it to the cloven hoof of the Devil."

"Mm hmm… So uh once you've experienced the perfect rapture of the wedding night you can just get the marriage annulled? Cry sorcery?"

"That's the dream, honey."

"Then it's a good thing I'm not trying to seduce you into doing anything."

"Right," he swallowed, feeling himself on the borders of a tricky topic. Instead he chose to play dumb and flirt, "rapture?"

Scully’s arms crossed in front of her chest, “shoe.”

He figured he at least had her attention, “just for the record, the Italian word for ‘no’ is ‘no’ so I’m not buying his ‘communication error’ bullshit excuse.”

She ignored him. And waited.

Mulder held up his hands in submission, “all I’m saying is that Dr Love should understand ‘no’ when he hears it.” Shifting across the mattress, he made a show of looking over the far side of the bed. “I think your shoe got tucked up down here,” he called, casting a glance back at her. The bed sheet skirted out over the wooden floor and from where she stood, Scully couldn’t see. “Come look,” he coaxed but she didn’t move around.

“I don’t have time for this,” she complained. She really didn’t, but she was also suspicious of his quick surrender and the way his eyes crinkled with that damn smile.

Mulder craned his neck to the floor, “see it's right there. You do believe me, don’t you?” His eyes widened at the distrusting look she returned him. “Like a dagger to the heart, Scully.” He made a stabbing motion against his chest and tried to look brutalized.

She darted a wary look at him as she edged around the bed. “Ok, then where?” She frowned, lifting her eyes from the floor just as Mulder’s arm hooked around her waist and uprooted her from the spot. She could hear him laughing as she fell to the bed and his other arm held her playfully in place. “Mulderrr...” He pulled her back against his chest and his nose touched to her temple as his mouth found her ear.

“Just give me a minute,” he whispered, his laughter fading and his lock tightening. She stopped squirming and relaxed into his arms as he spoke quietly to her.

"I'm fine. Yes, really," she whispered and his lips moved softly again. “Me too,” she returned almost inaudibly and his hold on her stiffened a fraction more.

Frozen pizza was just fine.     


	3. Chapter 3

May 20th 2011 9:06 pm

Sheriff’s office

Grace

Wyoming

 

“Parents’ names were Judith and Gabriel van de Kamp. Deceased. Boy would've been about 5 years old I reckon. I used to hunt with Gabe. Tragedy what happened on that ranch.” The sheriff had a sun-dried face with whiskers around his mouth and chin. He marched on short legs beside Skinner and adjusted the brim of his Stetson. “Boy weren't theirs, I mean by blood.” It was said as if to defend the van de Kamps. “Says a whole lot about nature versus nurture. Guess you can’t stamp the nature outta some.”

Skinner’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses but he let the comment fly past him. He hadn’t reached – and maintained – his career position without knowing when to pick his arguments. His primary concern was meeting with the child and the journey had thus far taken more twists and turns than could be easily stomached. He’d had no words of support for the foster parents and had instead assessed coldly the new trophy cabinet gleaming in one corner; the leather bound encyclopaedias carefully presented on a nearby shelf; and the large portrait of a conveniently attractive but confused-looking young boy decorating the mantelpiece. The woman fussed over a beautiful blue prize ribbon like she herself had won it, “I’ll just put this someplace safe,” was all she said in the end. He had left quickly, a sour taste in his mouth, unconcerned for their personal fears of scandal.

It was Friday night and downstairs the cells were filling up. Men with quick fists and slow wits, their faces red with liquor were shouting a chorus of curses. An officer at the front desk was trying to calm someone’s wife or girlfriend, “settle down now Delilah, you know it’s the kennels for Perry tonight.”

Skinner stepped around a puddle of vomit. “We’re advertising for a new janitor.” The sheriff muttered in explanation and quickly barked for a junior officer to clean it up.

Sheriff Stubbs had been in the shower preparing for duty when his wife thrust the cordless into the stall. 15 minutes later he blew into the station, shaken and frenzied. Phones rang everywhere; even some old rotary dial phones which he didn't think worked anymore were ringing. Journalists buzzed him like flies. Overwhelmed with stress and shock he was only able to shout a few rough questions at William Spender before excusing himself with a slam of the door. As he attempted to compose himself privately, a goddamn FBI agent strode into the building asking a dozen questions.

Both men now took the stairs to the next floor, the sheriff puffing a little as they neared the top. “The fire, the one that killed his…the van de Kamps,” Skinner’s voice took on a strained edge, “…accident was it?”

The sheriff broke from his stride, rounding on Skinner with an agitated look of surprise on his face. “Of course it was an accident! Who have you been talking to? Folks gossip is all. Say crazy things. Nothing was ever proven. Case closed."

Skinner's eyes were dark and still.

The Sheriff repositioned his hat several times while seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He happened to remember something and vocalized it without censoring himself, "some say that fire got so hot it cooked the veggies right in the ground..." The idea appeared to scare him and he scratched his whiskers. "But that's just old talk..."

Skinner tried to dig deeper. "Do you know if the van de Kamps had any enemies back then? Bad blood with someone in town maybe?"

The sheriff raised a hand to stop him, “now see here, that family had lived in Carbon County for four generations.” Four meaty fingers were held up. “Never a harsh word said against any one of them, and Gabe and Judy...” He shook his head with clear conviction, “it wouldn’t make a damn bit of sense, no one would have a motive.”

A Motive. Skinner couldn't blink. He tried to swallow and speak at the same time and he ended up making a small gagging sound. It was the worst kind of thought to imagine an innocent family believing they were safe when in fact they were marked out as a defenseless open target.

Skinner looked past a glass pane to the sleeping child. He'd fallen asleep across the interview table, his head resting sideways on folded arms. Brown hair was tossed around his fine features and a frown pinched his eyebrows. “For God’s sake,” he hissed, “the boy can’t even stay awake past nine.” His eyes flitted between the sheriff and William, “he’s made a mistake…ok a few,” he conceded before Stubbs could interrupt, “but you can't honestly believe he was responsible for what happened out on that road today?"

The Sheriff looked grim.

Skinner argued on, "he’s been through enough. He has a grandfather who forgets who he is, doesn’t make for the strongest of guardians now does it?”

"Mr Skinner, I have to ask again - what interest do you have in this small town...with this small boy. There must be a hundred...a thousand...more worthy cases...”

“Mailboxes,” Skinner plucked from thin air.

“Mailboxes?” murmured the Sheriff, baffled and rubbing his crimson neck. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if Skinner had announced he was there delivering letters on the Pony Express.

“We have multiple reports in this area of young miscreants defacing federal mailboxes. This boy you have in custody matches descriptions of a repeat offender.”

“Mailboxes??” the Sheriff blustered with animated confusion.

“*Federal* mailboxes,” stressed Skinner as cool as air, thinking that Fox Mulder wasn’t the only one who could brass-neck it. The thought gave him pause and he changed tactic altogether. “Look,” he leveled using a more informal tone, “my boss has the shits with me. I flouted orders on a big case last month and now he’s punishing me - sending me WAY out here to Wyoming on some piss take.” Skinner made a play of looking embarrassed and unassuming. “All I need is 10 minutes with the kid...maybe I can still make that night flight back East...”

Sheriff Stubbs weighed this up. The mayor, the press and every Goddamn sticky beak in town was on his case. Getting the FBI agent out of his hair would certainly mean one less headache. “Mailboxes, eh?”

“Obama,” shrugged Skinner in explanation.

The Sheriff left him to it. "So Goddamn hot it cooked veggies still in the ground," he said, murmuring old memories to himself as he walked away.

The words didn't rest well with Skinner. They didn't rest well at all.

 

*****

9:27 pm

 

The room was cool and quiet. As an interview room it didn’t look like it was used much for its intended purpose. From the kettle and overflowing trash can against one wall, Skinner guessed it doubled as a break out room. Routine and petty felonies at best, bar brawls and cash disputes settled downstairs.

He nodded at Deputy Carver sat in one corner and accepted the man's clammy handshake, detecting a light quake in his grip. "We were like brothers," he said with a twist of his mouth and Skinner dropped his head briefly in apology.

When he turned to the middle of the room he found he couldn't manage to smile at the young boy half-hidden behind the interview desk. His own clothing had been retained as evidence and he now wore items borrowed from the department's lost and found cupboard: a girlish t-shirt too small even for his slight frame and denim shorts wide enough on him to pass as skateboarding pants. He noted the bad scarring which had long ago destroyed the skin on one arm while the healthy limb showed only signs of weak bruising.

"William." It was a poor greeting and he didn't hold it against the child for ignoring it. Skinner set down his records and slowly pulled up a seat. The metal legs scraping against the floor heightened his awareness of how stagnant and silent it felt in the room. "My name is Walter Skinner. I work for the FBI…” he paused, mindful that he was speaking to a child. “You know what that is, don’t you?” Skinner thought he saw a gesture of acknowledgement, a nod maybe, but then the boy continued to twist his head. He looked faintly disorientated, likely from the scrap of sleep and his residual tiredness, and was even turning in his seat to look behind him. Skinner wondered how much was now being remembered upon his awake. It must have felt like awaking into a nightmare.

His arrival appeared to be alarming William but Skinner couldn’t have imagined the fear he was capable of instilling – not when it was against the will of his own heart. Skinner wasn’t to know that in the eyes of the small boy sat opposite he resembled the bald-pated birds from old Westerns. He perched high above William, hunched and hulking in a black trench cloak. A Condor with cufflinks. His telescopic eyes were intelligent but looked ready to rip apart a prey's flesh in seconds. No, Skinner could only watch as the child breathed more raggedly and tiny saliva bubbles appeared on his lip.

It was a difficult task to place himself in the mind of William. It wasn’t his strength as an agent and he lacked experience with children. As he looked down at the child’s crown of brown hair his own boyhood had never felt farther away. He was unable to summon the insight, the delicacy of feeling, needed to perceive as William did. All he had to go on were some type-written notes with a lot of red pen in the margin and the swarm of disparaging remarks and painful stories which buzzed in his head. He wasn’t sure what to think right now. He wasn’t ten years old in small town Wyoming, and while Skinner might have lost his parents, it hadn’t happened twice, and certainly not before all his milk teeth were out. He’d never had his feet beaten by bullies for wearing tatty moccasins – something earlier disclosed by the school principal. He tossed his takeout sandwich after learning that and his appetite was yet to recover. Hard sticks and small toes – he drew in a breath and the strength of the boy’s deodorant hit him. It was most likely snuck from the foster father and in a dose potent enough for a logger, driller or even one or two lawyers he’d met. Chicken bones stood a better chance of putting out a sweat than that little boy and as he looked at William’s dropped head he cursed whoever had given him the damn idea that he smelled bad.  

For a moment it looked as if William was attempting to speak but instead he paled beyond his already light complexion and his fists, which had been held like little hammers, opened in front of him. He splayed his finger tips across the table and pressed tightly downwards as if wanting to push them through the wood. At the same time he made a small cry; a single, rogue sound no louder than receiving a quick nick or cut. Skinner drew his eyes away from the boy, looking to the table edge instead. The noise had echoed twice, three times in his head: sad, weak, scared and primitive. Yet he found himself shaking it away as if it was a fly buzzing his face and all the while cursed himself for his lack of demonstrable compassion. Needlessly he sifted through the documents before him and gathered his reserve.

"I'm here..." he stopped, unable to easily explain, to William or anyone else, why it was he was there. He watched as William's eyes nipped quickly to different points and corners in the room. He looked trapped. "I don't want you to be afraid. I'm here to talk to you, help if I can." His tone was careful, his face hard and still. He was unsmiling, but sincere. "I have some questions I need to ask you." Skinner swallowed, willing a response from the boy but William only furrowed his brow deeper and looked at the wall. He waited uneasily, glad at least of the time to think and channel his questioning. The boy was guilty. Jesus Christ. Even his foster parents had declined any more involvement.

He glanced behind him to see how much the Deputy was monitoring their conversation and saw that the man's eyes had left his newspaper and were boring somewhere into the child's chest. It made it difficult, ideally Skinner wanted William alone but the sensitive nature of the case and his unofficial involvement made in unwise to step on toes too early. However, it was also occurring to him that the stagnant feeling he'd sensed on entering the room was beginning to smell a lot like intimidation and the tops of his ears reddened with new feelings of hostility. When Carver caught Skinner's watchful look, he visibly reeled himself in, lowering his angry stare behind his newspaper.

Skinner looked across at William and readied himself once more, poised to commit the child's reaction, his every expression and gesture to memory. "What do you think should happen to the person who killed that man?"

The question rang in the air, clear and raw before silence settled. The boy's startled blue eyes were desperately trying to hold onto the same spot on the wall and Skinner could sense rather than see that he was shaking. He couldn't imagine the terror William must be feeling - to be 10 and for your life to be over. "William?" He looked finally at Skinner, their eyes meeting for the briefest of seconds but it was all Skinner needed to feel the punch of recognition. It gave way to another moment of emotion, stronger this time and approaching protectiveness and how could it not? But he corrected himself nonetheless. Too much was at stake to allow a mild heart to weaken his wits. He needed to discover the truth.

An answer was coming. With short hisses and a quiet moan William began to speak, glancing warily at the Deputy as he did so. "They should be allowed to go b-back to school on-on Monday. Sit at their desk. Go to recess." It looked like he was having to squeeze the words from his throat.

It was a guilty answer and Skinner's eyes widened briefly at its implication. "Do you know why you're here?" He tried next.

The child's head bobbed sadly and his brows drew together. "Because I was driving the car. Because it hit him--"

"Yeah and now he's dead," interrupted Deputy Carver, standing from his chair and smacking down the folded newspaper. "A good man is dead because of you. You little son of a bitch," he snarled and William's eyes snapped back to the wall, rattled as he gripped his forehead in his fingers. Skinner cast Carver a harder look. It might have been the victim's colleague and friend but harassing the minor in this state was grossly irresponsible.

"Why don't you take yourself some time?" He tried to appease in a hard whisper, feeling strangely sore over the insult made to William. The other man stared back, his hands resting on his hips. "It might be best for everyone," Skinner cautioned coolly although the glint in his eye as he said it put the Deputy more in mind of a threat. He dropped his hands from his waist and sat back down, backing off but not leaving as Skinner had hoped.

His attention drew back to William. "Are you ok?" He checked, sensing a better calmness in the boy. For a moment he thought he was going to speak but then had decided against it. He watched as William instead turned his cheek to him and stretched a finger along the desk to reach a stray paperclip. He proceeded to push it around the desk by his fingertip, weaving it through invisible obstacles. Skinner sighed, the last few days - this hunt for William - had been draining. He removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose thinking of how he'd once sat across a desk like this from Mulder and Scully. Back then he’d regularly wanted to wring Mulder’s neck. Curious, how it had lightened his spirit since. Mulder, with an enemy at every door and whose misbehavior he'd suffered for so long. Rules understood only as a suggested guideline, questions rarely answered directly and attention never fully given. His eyes shifting needlessly over everything: his partner, a spot on his tie, a smudge on his shoe, his cuticles, always the ashtray, his partner, the clock, his watch, the door.

Skinner's gaze fell again on William who had now pulled his legs under himself for extra height at the desk and was flipping the paperclip under and over his fingers and counting the little exercise as if it was a therapy. His likeness with Scully was striking and he thawed again as he looked at the boy's face.

“Wh-What?” asked William, looking up apprehensively.  

Skinner wasn't aware he'd spoken aloud.

“You said ‘Scully’, well who’s he?”

Skinner shook his thoughts clear and replaced his glasses as he turned back to the file lying between them.

William had been truant from school that day. According to his statement he was playing several miles out of town - alone - by a section of stream where the water widened briefly beneath a solitary tree. He had described giant rocks and a rope swing long ago abandoned by kids moving on to high school. There was already a photograph in the file and Skinner could see a steep embankment on one side which would have shielded the spot from the chance of passing traffic. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought it an ideal hideout for a kid bunking off school, but then, it was equally an ideal location for any character to go about their misdeeds unseen. It was, after all, not the first time Skinner had seen that particular swing.

A small evidence bag, possibly even a sandwich bag, had been stapled to the inside of the folder. Skinner's finger and thumb held the tiny article through the confines of the plastic: little blond Smurfette. William stretched over a little, a spark of fondness in his eyes, "Mr...m-my toy..." then pulled back sadly when it was shut away from him again. “She’s pretty,” and took up his paper clip again.

"It says in here you claim you were chased into the car, that you deny it was joyriding. Is that true?" Skinner felt William looking past his shoulder and angled his chin in the same direction, already sensing that Carver was staring the boy out. "Will?" he pushed, using the familiar form of his name for the first time. The child hesitantly nodded, yes it was true. The victim, Deputy Patnick, had tried to attack him.

"You cracked-up liar!" Cried Carver, on his feet once more and glaring hurtfully at the young boy. He looked at Skinner next, frustrated by the senior man's tolerance of the child and gestured angrily at William's statement, "blaming his week-old bruises on Tom. You're not honestly going to listen to this crap, are you?"  

"I-I heal fast," William defended quickly as Skinner glanced at the yellowed contusions on his arm, "I know it sounds lame b-but it's not lying. Deputy Patnick was..." the boy tilted his head away from Carver and murmured carefully to Skinner, "...he was *really* not himself..."

"Son of a bitch," gritted Carver again.

At that moment Skinner abruptly stood and faced him, the slur suddenly scratching his resolve, "Less. Of. The. Bitch." He breathed heavily for a moment, his eyes locked on Carver. He'd had just about enough of pussy-footing around and damn it, he could pull rank faster than a plug out of a tub. Maybe he was becoming a rebel in his seasoned age, or maybe sleep-deprivation and gut-feeling was affecting his judgement on this one, but whatever the case, he was rapidly having to repress the urge to pick up the child and radio in a Black Hawk helicopter. In his fist he held up pages of case notes, "now unless you'd like to explain why your buddy, Patnick, was unofficially patrolling an empty stretch of road ON HIS DAY OFF, or perhaps why his wife hasn't seen him at home all this week, then I suggest you get the Hell out of this room, Deputy."

Skinner yanked the door open hard, shaking a panel of glass as he saw the stunned looking man out. His head then cranked left and right as he barked speedy orders to any officer or staff in sight. "I want the boy's lawyer back here now. Where the Hell is social services? I need an update on that body." A tall, slick-haired man with a long neck wandered around the corner next, "what's your name? Skeens. Good. I want a phone that has half damn a signal." His neck spun again, "and would someone get this kid a drink of MILK!"

William's mouth popped open and he looked round-eyed at the official FBI badge pinned to Skinner's jacket, "neat job," he whispered before the force of the man's intensity re-zoned on him. His butt jumped a little on the seat.

"You." Skinner settled heavily facing William and his two flat palms slapped hard on the desk top. "I want to know everything."

His expression and tone of voice were formidable but William didn't feel fear exactly. There was something about the man that was spirited, strong, and the boy was moved to put a little faith in him. The Thunderbird on the totem pole.

"I-I-I was out playing, and--"

"No, from the end," Skinner interjected, trusting that a change in sequence might reveal more details in William's story than had already been recorded. "I need you to start from now, this very moment, and tell me backwards. Do you understand?"

The boy frowned and shook dark hair from his eyes with a quick jerk of his head, he'd try his best.

As his story unfolded - in reverse - he could feel Skinner tracking his every word with a neutral stare. At times he signaled a hand, wanting to pursue a question or clarify certain meaning with him, and when the boy made a yucky sound on taking a gulp of milk, "tastes like chalk or something...," he was reminded to stay focused. William watched him scratch notes on his pocket pad which he could read up-side down without much difficulty - although he didn't feel the need to share this fact. Here and there the wording looked a little cryptic and his fingers played absently on his red lips as he puzzled them.

"And that's how come I didn't wanna go to sch-school today," finished William whose finger tips had now traveled to the base of his skull and neck.

"Because you saw the same car again?" asked Skinner, underlining the reg. number the boy recalled.

"It was following me, waiting for me." William watched a square of light shine on the man's glasses before his eyes squinted at the little glare it gave off. He then softly kneaded a tender area above his spine. "Did it get real warm in here?" He asked, beginning to sway a little on his seat.

Skinner saw his head twist behind him in the same strange manoeuvre he'd observed on first entering the room. Fear jumped into him straight away and he stretched forward in alarm. "Will?" He called quickly and shifted around to the other side of the table. His anxious palm covered the boy's forehead - he was burning up. "William, can you hear me?" He looked suddenly at the milk glass, remembering the boy's complaint, but when he smelled and took a sip of it himself, the drink seemed perfectly normal. He called his name again louder, draping one arm behind William's chair and touching his delicate chin with his other hand, "Son?" The young boy turned slowly to him, suddenly composed and in no immediate state of pain or distress. He stared straight into the man's worried eyes and smiled extra politely.

Skinner recoiled in seconds. Scully was gone. As he looked at William he saw a different presence behind the child's gaze - an oil spill rolling past on sea-blue eyes.

He stood, stood behind his chair. "God," and then, "don't move."


	4. Chapter 4

10:20 pm

 

Skeens stood like an underfed giraffe outside the room he'd been ordered to guard. No one was allowed in - that was the instruction left to him by Walter Skinner, FBI. He was to keep a careful watch over the minor until the man could return. Slowly he shifted between long legs and ground his teeth, incredulous that the FBI would want to shield and not warden what Carver was calling, the pint-sized cop-killer.

"I gotta go bathroom." The little brat had asked almost immediately. There was milk above his top lip and he was pointing animatedly at a nearby door.

"Shut-up Spender," Skeens answered through the glass, lowering his head to give the boy a warning look.

William held the front of his crotch tightly, his hips wriggling in over-sized shorts and entreated through his teeth, "M-Mr..." He came up close to pat the window, his eyes scrunching up with a look of extreme discomfort.

Skeens had growled his consent with the exasperated haste of someone who didn't want mop duty. There was a small bathroom built into the corner of the interview room and he watched through the glass as the boy darted straight for it. He meanwhile remained on his side of the corridor, groping a cigarette packet inside his pocket and thinking longingly of his break. He plucked out a comb next and extended an arm to rake back his black thinning hair in case Suzanne on desk duty was getting off about the same time. She’d known Patnick longer and might be looking for some manner of comfort.

Several minutes passed and Skeens turned to scan the interview room again. The little bastard was taking his time and he picked up a portion of venetian blinds to better study the room's corner water closet. The stall door didn't reach to the ground and there was a sizable gap exposing the restroom floor. The child's small sneakers, which had ‘NIKE’ apparently drawn on with a marker pen, were clearly visible. The man's head rose in satisfaction. He was on the pan. He was safe. He wasn't going anywhere.

 

*****

 

Not wasting a second more, William climbed barefoot onto the cistern above the toilet. The high, rectangular window was small but so was he and the boy pulled himself out of it, scraping his cheek, banging a shoulder and knocking a knee - so overcome was he with the desperate need to escape the ensnaring well. The new wash of feelings confused him. Frightened though he had been, it didn't account for this drastic action, and nor could he put into words the strange desires suddenly running through every neural pathway and vein in his body. Initially only driven to leave the building, he now looked out from his lofty position and was bizarrely motivated to abandon the whole town, and perhaps the great state of Wyoming altogether. The idea should have shocked him - should have, but didn't. After all, he had responsibilities in this town, loyalties. He had Connor. Crouching on the frame and outer ledge, William glanced hesitantly back at the tattered trainers a mile down on the tiled floor. This was what had to happen.

In the child's brain, a riot was taking place and the symptoms were only now crawling to the surface. The aches and sweats came in spikes but there were long periods of relief when he felt healthy as a horse. William made a grab for the drainpipe and clung to it tightly, squeezing his hands and knees to it before lowering himself down the length. As he moved hand beneath hand, his eyes fuzzed black as if a mangled television aerial was trying to feed a bad signal. Then, just as quickly, the faulty reception failed and his irises cleared blue once again. He coughed.

Jumping the remaining distance, William landed in a sudden flood of light. The beam of headlights from an old Mustang Coupe blinded him and he held a hand in front of his face to block some of the glare. An engine purred in the shadows and the silhouetted driver stood in the open car doorway. “Damn,” a man’s voice laughed harshly, “you’re prettier than a little girl.”

William froze with hands held up defensively in front of his torso, “wh-who the Hell are you?”

Alex Krycek watched him. The child’s eyes were stretched wide, lips caught in mid-quiver and his chest quaked. He was like a deer in headlights.  

“Your ride.” He patted the roof of the car, “get in the car, Pee-Wee. It reeks of piss back here.”

The boy looked suspiciously at the old red Ford, recognition mixing with anger and then fright. “You,” he gasped to the shadowy figure behind all his unfolding ruin. This stalker was the reason William had broken his routine and bunked off school.

“I'm not g-going anywhere with you. You think I’m stupid?”

“Stupid is spending the next five years cleaning up blood and chuck at Juvenile Hall...," the voice gritted back, "...which by the way will look like a fairytale after you get to adult prison." William lowered his head as a worried breath escaped at the thought. “But hey, if you’ve got some smart getaway plan then...” Krycek gestured the child's small bare feet.

William shook his head, no. He went from A to B to C and never thought about D. Hot-headed – his grandfather would have called it, annoying as shit on a broom was the sheriff’s more colorful description. He took a hesitant step closer to the shadows and heard gravel crunch under heavy boots. The man was meeting him half-way.

“William, I’m Alex. There, guess we’re not strangers anymore. We can shake later.” He watched as William swallowed and looked around as if seeking a better option. “You’re about two minutes from getting busted,” he warned, giving a deliberately wary look up to the window the boy had just escaped from. “Fleeing the arms of the law…” Krycek winced as if incapable of such an act himself, “…it just looks *bad* doesn’t it?”

A moment later Krycek jammed the stick shift in the blackened car, “you better not have fleas,” he told his young passenger, his eyes on the back window as the car screeched into reverse.

Something in the boy made his lips curl into a half-smile. His eyes fogged. This was good. This was progress.


	5. Chapter 5

Departures Lounge

Denver Airport

 

 

Mulder stared at the file in his hand then split it in half, wordlessly passing a share of it to Scully as they'd done a thousand times before. "Amna on reception wished us a very nice day," he relayed tonelessly, turning away from the Airport business center from where he'd collected the faxed copy of William Spender's personal file.

Scully took it with unsteady hands and breathed hard as Mulder's arm touched lightly across her shoulders. Around them passengers waiting for boarding browsed through newspapers and glossy magazines. The young woman sitting closest to her was intently reading an article on a new vitamin face cream while a man adjacent to Mulder was discretely monitoring a personals column. Just days ago it had been them, returning home from a far-flung destination, their thoughts gathered and fingers loosely entwined. They couldn’t have imagined the circumstances which would see them return so soon to the airport. "This doesn't feel real," she complained to him, unnerved by the monotony enclosing their internal turmoil. Somewhere a Mr Tang was late for his connection flight to Kansas City and a Frontier flight 1764 was departing for San Antonio. Mulder gave her a short, understanding nod and fiddled with the lid of his disposable coffee cup. He made like he was about to start reading one section of file and Scully, her eyes vulnerable, slid a hand over his to stall the action. "There must be some mistake."

Mulder looked at her for a long moment, acknowledging for her with his stare that he knew this was happening too fast, that the raw suddenness of the last few hours had been shattering for him also. To have learnt of William's suspected discovery only to be informed within hours that the child in question had disappeared - no, escaped police custody, had produced a storm of feelings for them both and Mulder could sense the same complex mesh of emotions running through Scully as it did him. Rarely had he so mentally hastened a journey to pass more quickly as the feelings of powerlessness created by the distance only added to their torment. "We need to know, Scully." He squeezed her hand and lifted the first page into his view.

She looked blankly at her own set of papers, overwhelmed by the thought that she could potentially be about to uncover her own son's life story. It felt strange and unnatural, a wholly surreal task for a mother to perform and not one she'd honestly anticipated. She'd had years to mourn her adoption decision in empty bedrooms with bare shelves and faded nursery border. "Do you have children?" Toothy-smiled realtors had asked before Mulder would usher them on to a convenient crack or missing floorboard. Meanwhile her lost infant was beautifully cataloged in closed albums and preserved in dustless boxes with starched baby linens. Returning home on dark nights fraught with hard decisions and painful admissions, Scully would steal into the spare rooms. Contented with Mulder's soft snores she would wander through their cool darkness, unchanged and unshowered, watching shadows from curtain-less windows wave on the walls. They felt like dead, in-between hours where she could scoop up beside the glass on the deep window ledges and exorcise trapped tears. These were times when she might take short, secret sniffs at old baby ointments or slip her hand into a box to squeeze or stroke a once loved garment.

The void left by William had helped drive the advances in her medical career, enabling her to draw meaning and value from life. Her work, as always, papered the cracks in her personal life. The branch of medicine she worked in called on her to enhance the health of children and in their blackest hours, fight - fight for someone who wasn't strong enough to fight for themselves. Sometimes she felt herself working harder and longer hours than at the Bureau. "But with less ooze, right?" Mulder had once made of the comparison as they shared a 10:30 dinner together. The abiding passion she had for her work kept Scully sharp and focused despite the sting in her heart. The success she felt, the difference she dealt, provided a measure of peace which perhaps she didn't feel she deserved, and until lately she didn’t envision herself ever again knowing of, or being rejoined with the child.

But recent months had been a trial for both of them. Sad fantasies crept into patient consults and staff meetings. Clock hands crawled or cantered around their numbered faces and several times she’d reached for a sip of coffee only to find it cold, split. The long commutes were lonely and plagued with questions. She mouthed apologies into car mirrors and sped to flee the roadside shadows – and the phantoms which flickered in them like old home movies. Scully approached their home these last weeks limply carrying her coat and purse, eyes drawn to the empty land and deserted porch – no bicycles, Frisbees or wet sneakers. Entering the house, there was never a need to step over a school knapsack, or to avoid a rogue bouncy ball, glob of gum or runaway hamster. There were no peanut butter smears on the door handles. The refrigerator didn’t showcase novelty magnets and the shelves weren’t a gallery for sugar-frosted cereal mascots. There were two toothbrushes in the bathroom; at every dawn and dusk, only two.

Could William have had a home there with them? Hadn’t they been left alone now, sheltered from the past, given a shot at the unremarkable? Scully sweated the answer, cowered from it, tossed and turned with it, wondering if his birthdays might have passed with carnival balloons and double-sized teddy bears instead of the two of them hunting bitter-sweet distractions and burying the anniversaries with work and wine. Now followed the painful realization that her son’s childhood was creeping to a close, that his first birthday had grown into his tenth and beyond it lay his teens. And all the while she faced the impending end of nature’s clock. She was struggling more and more to honor her choices.

Scully’s lashes fluttered and she sniffed once while refocusing on the present moment. She looked at Mulder whose face had greyed in the last several minutes. "Mulder?" she called quietly for he seemed more lost in his thoughts than she herself had been. Putting aside her own layer of papers, she steadied the shaking ones in his hands. "What is it? Mulder what does it say?" She looked worryingly at the information still shivering in his grip. She tried to read it, to take it off him, but instead it was her elbow that was quickly picked up and pulled. Obliviously he spilled cold remnants of their coffee as he hustled them to a quieter section of lounge. "Mulder?" she asked more sharply, her concerned blue eyes imploring his as he seated them close together in a remote corner.

"Demons," he gritted, thrusting words under her nose that she didn't look down at. "Demons," he repeated, his stilted breathing sounding harsh in the quiet area of the departure hall, "that's how he described it - them. Demons with rubber faces and no eyes." Scully drew back from him and pushed the file away from her. An understanding, a sudden picture had quickly entered her consciousness and she stilled its chilling memory before it could settle in her mind. She straightened her shoulders a little, unwilling to be shaken by ideas of the disfigured and waxen faced creatures who had been responsible for mass burnings in the past. Mulder's eyes were fierce and bright with the same realisation that she herself was denying. "The investigation after the fire...no one listened to him. Scully, no one believed him." The story seemed to have struck a painful nerve for Mulder, "and why would they? It reads like a Halloween camp story." He frowned at her lack of absorption and lowered his face nearer to hers, "you do know what I'm referring to?"

"No. I don't." But she was suddenly remembering standing on a bridge above Ruskin Dam beneath powerful white light and then the sound of screams, lots of screams. Scully withdrew her wrist from his hold and stood up. "Mulder any number of things could have accounted for what...this-this poor boy saw." She was not calling him William. "It was a powerfully traumatic event and God knows what something like that would trigger in him." She smoothed the hair around her shoulders and pressed her lips together.

He nodded slowly, his expression disappointed and growing troubled. "Are you about to give me the clichéd candy store of post-traumatic stress symptoms?" He watched her sigh quietly and turn her head to the departure screen menu. "I think it's something we need to consider. You don't think that description fits with what we've already seen? What we already know to be true? Scully look at me." She turned with a start and their eyes searched one another's for a strong moment. "Faceless alien rebels purifying with fire."

"Stop it."

He didn't. "That's how the renegade aliens worked. Destroying or-or exposing anything important to the colonization Project through sabotage and incineration." Mulder privately recalled the annihilation of the syndicate members in an airplane hangar at El Rico Air Force Base which sadly had included Cassandra Spender. As he did so, the name Spender ticked loudly through his thoughts once again. If the boy Skinner had discovered was truly revealed to be their son, then the issue and potential consequences of his surname would need to be called to question.

"William isn't a threat. He's a little boy," Scully was defending, blurting out his name at the same time. "I don't understand what motive or interest it would serve to target him anymore." But of course she did. Scully could recollect her conversation with Jeffrey Spender as if it had occurred only days earlier and, when Mulder vocalized this for them both again, unnecessarily reminding her that some parties involved might never let their son go, her resolve began to break. Memories of the man's severe disfigurement brushed like thorns inside her. It was from fear of that future, that sadistic sentence, which had compelled her so strongly and distraughtly to protect her son in the first place. As if psychically tuned to her thoughts, Mulder lifted an image from the file revealing the enduring physical legacy of the fire. William Spender's dry, leathery section of arm filled most of the scanned photograph. "3rd degree burns," she identified in an automatic voice then brought her eyes up to his, "he nearly lost it," she whispered, her words growing moist. "Or I mean this poor boy did. Whoever he is."

Mulder had fallen silent. She tried to tuck the offending image away but he wouldn't allow it. "Please," she said, watching his sultana eyes soften with sadness as he continued to stare into it. It was clear: he believed it was William. Her eyes welled up slowly beside him. What had she done? What sort of a life had she delivered him into? She confronted Mulder with her fears moments later, "you think I sent by baby son to his death?" she asked him desperately, searchingly, while glaring at the child's file, "to flame and madness in the dead of night...to be purged at the hands of these-these mutilated alien devils?" The whites of her eyes glistened as she felt grabbed by a sudden moment of horror, "or to escape...," she continued with greater grief, "and be orphaned into misery, ignorance and neglect?" Scully bowed her head, fearful of any reality which might prove that hideous and unjust.

"It wouldn't be your fault. Scully, you're not responsible." He told her carefully though equally as alarmed by such a fate. "Don't do that to yourself. I won't let you." A lump was building in his throat. The look she gave him told Mulder he didn't have the power on this one to absolve her.

After a difficult minute, he stood and took her hand in his, collecting their bags as the departure board flashed for them to begin boarding the final leg of their journey. He silently slipped William Spender's file into his carry-on as they walked.

"What if this is him, Mulder? William." Her damp eyelashes swept wide as she looked up at him.

"Then he is going to have a lot of questions for us." His eyes lingered on her face before his arm drew up and around her back.


	6. Chapter 6

Saturday 21st May 2011  
The Sundown Inn  
Grace  
Wyoming

 

It was Mulder who came to the motel room door although he disappeared almost at once. Beyond the wood, Skinner could hear him speaking in hushed, private tones and the skin around the neck of his shirt began to sweat. When he re-emerged, Skinner watched him postpone eye contact and softly close the door at his back. Mulder led them both away with several shuffled steps and Skinner followed silently, aware that he wanted some distance between his room and whatever might be discussed between them. There was something of a despondent teenager in his demeanour - his shoulders slouched forwards and both hands were sunken into the pockets of old jeans. He scuffed his feet as he walked, kicked at a stone and sighed in a whisper. That wasn't to say he looked young, because right now Fox Mulder was aging before Skinner's very eyes and there was nothing, not the slim-fit t-shirt or vacation tan, which could disguise that. The man was hurting.

Their pleasantries were muted with Mulder wiping a weary hand over his face and Skinner painfully conscious that he was yet again greeting this friend with bad news about his son. His apology to him was gasped.

"You did what you thought was right. He probably lasted longer with you than he would’ve done with anyone else...even me."

Skinner nodded tightly while Mulder looked at the stars.

“How is she?” Skinner asked him tentatively.

“Oh she’s...fine, yeah...I’m now clear on that...,” said Mulder, brooding on what must have been an earlier argument.

"We need to talk," Skinner said, interrupting his pensive frown. He was unable to hesitate any further, "Mulder there are things I know, which I've seen...," his eyes skimmed over his right and left shoulders, "that I wouldn't talk about over the phone, that couldn't be put in that report I sent you."

Mulder's eyes shrunk back a little and he swallowed, "about William?" He asked in a low voice, not yet accustomed to using the name at a normal level – talk of his son was something only ever breathed about across pillows.

Skinner looked at the ground, conscious of the strain Mulder was already under but respecting him enough to be honest, however terrible the truth might sound. His words began to tumble like rocks, unrestrained now that the man was able to admit them. "I saw something in him, something that stirred and swam in the boy's eyes." With a bent finger he briefly gestured a similar location on his own eye. "Everything I've heard about it...," Skinner's voice constricted with the difficulty of imparting the news, "the black movements in the eyes...," he trailed.

Mulder grimaced, understanding the implications of what he was hearing. "You think William's been infected with the Black Oil?" His eyes widened with disbelief and alarm as he turned instinctively to look at the motel room door again - Scully. In those minutes she was still lost inside photographs of the child and grappling with memories and regrets of which he only felt the echo. The thought of breaking this to her, on top of everything else they'd learned, that their son might also be possessed with Purity, ate at his stomach. He breathed raggedly while thinking simultaneously of the boy. William was small and crimeless in all of this, punished with the circumstances of a fate he neither understood nor deserved. His young life was mapping out to be poor, nasty, brutish and short, corrupted by the sins of the fathers. Mulder now knew that each of their destinies had become intertwined. In the haunting photographs of their son they'd both glimpsed a vision of immortality - survival in a future beyond their own lives, and for a brief moment it had breathed strength and optimism into their spirits, but without the promise of William, the thread still tethering them to this accursed world wouldn't last. Whatever madness loomed on the horizon for mankind, Mulder needed hope in his heart in order to face it. He needed their son.

Skinner allowed him some time. Mulder was justifiably distressed and now shifted a distance away to face a shadowed wall. One arm stretched up against it and his palm grazed across the coarse brick. He coughed and spat twice into a garbage can before turning around. "Look," offered Skinner, "the late night diner across the street is nearly empty. We can talk more inside."

Mulder gave a slow, catatonic nod. “I’ll catch up,” he managed.

 

*****

 

They sat opposite one another, a ketchup bottle shaped liked a fat tomato between them. Neither touched the grease-stained menu. They must have made an odd couple - the teenager working the smelly fryer burnt two burgers while watching them and the cleaner mopped past their table three times. “I’ll take mine black,” muttered Mulder to ‘Lisa’ with a pen behind her ear, “no, nothing else,” but she continued to read aloud from the specials board, eager to linger and hear their business. She sounded out ‘panini’ and pronounced it all wrong.

In the end she tried to jump-start gossip herself, gushing stupidly about an ‘evil little weirdo’ and giddily clutching her over-stuffed chest in cartoon horror. “I’m thinking like Michael Myers back in that first scene with the clown suit… ” She waved to the guy flipping another scorched burger. “That’s Tuck. He’s gonna give me Garlic to keep him away on my walk home.”  
  
Mulder’s eyes glazed, “that works on vampires,” he corrected. “Some would argue werewolves...” He was speaking on auto-pilot. “In early European folklore, garlic had the power to ward off the Evil Eye.”

“Is that what you think that little boy is? A va-vampire or some kind of monster?” The waitress looked next at Skinner.

“I think he’d like his fucking coffee now,” he warned her.

“You know, you hardly ever take me out nice places anymore...,” Mulder complained dryly after she’d gone.

“You ok?”

He played with a toothpick and worried for Scully.

The loud rotor of a helicopter broke his thoughts, the rhythmic whump-whump sending waitress Lisa bouncing to the window. Tuck burnt another burger. Some high school jocks eating out by their truck had one of their buddies in a headlock and were yelling, “we caught your guy!” as French fries got tossed into the night air.

Mulder meanwhile looked on edge, “somehow I don’t think it’s showing the sights to city tourists.”

Skinner checked his watch, “I expected it in 20 minutes ago.”

“It’s looking for him?”

"Sweep searches."

His coffee arrived on a shaky tray - Lisa apparently was still preoccupied with her fears of a vampire-monster-boy.

“What’s he like?” Mulder asked Skinner.

Skinner frowned. The timidity in the question made him uneasy. It didn’t even sound like Mulder’s voice; he was completely beaten up over the situation. “You’ve read the file. I even got you his school report card.” He said, hoping to brush the conversation aside.

“But I’m asking you.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” sighed Skinner and tried looking away. He couldn’t talk about his personal observations of the child - it felt too raw in his mind. He had faced Mulder tonight with several grim subjects, from William being orphaned to murder set-ups and the child potentially being polluted with Purity. But it was startling just how much the small things could count – and how they could stack up and easily overwhelm. Skinner was reminded of the deodorant and the little sneakers with NIKE fraudulently penned on the sides. He knew as well that somewhere in the grandfather’s home would be a blood-stained pair of moccasins in the same shoe size. Yes, the man wondered again to himself, it was startling how powerful the small things could be and he wasn’t about to scratch up any unnecessary details for Mulder. “He uh...he’s the kind of kid who shuts his teddy bear away in the closet because he thinks he should.”

Mulder canted his head, taking apart those words in his head while looking for something more. And he knew there was more. He had faith in Skinner, but he also remembered how hard the man had blocked him in those initial, mistrusting years. There was always this armour to Skinner: an old war tank with a horseshoe of steel hair.

They both looked out different windows for a while.

The jukebox was playing an old Harry Chapin song about a boy turning 10. Mulder used to like that song. He hoped it ended soon.

When Skinner spoke next his voice was notably quieter. Mulder's ears pricked and his heart picked up pace. Skinner explained the tape he'd seen which appeared to show William affecting the movement of the tree swing. He was by nature a careful and practical man so he didn't exaggerate or embellish any details. "It might suggest..." and "possibly indicate..." was the language he used to convey his observations. When Mulder started garbling about telekinesis, Skinner looked uneasy but he couldn't deny it either.

Mulder was processing it all with feelings of fascination but also fear. William's apparent psychokinetic abilities had been described to him by Scully and Monica Reyes, and Skinner's account still bowled him over, but the idea of someone secretly filming the boy...for what purpose? Mulder's mouth started to fill with saliva and he felt a wave in his stomach. Skinner was talking to him about William but the whole world had lost its volume. Hastily he reached for his coffee and gulped at the scalding liquid. Lisa dropped a tray but he couldn't hear it crash. The cutlery, when it scattered across the diner floor, didn't ping and clatter. The panic and nausea he was experiencing gave him the sensation of being under water. Slowly he seemed to resurface and became aware of Skinner's voice and the jukebox music. Anger was awaking inside him now and he felt paternal as fuck.

Skinner was still talking, "...and Will he --"

"*Will*?" Mulder broke with an expression of sudden, green-eyed disbelief. The diminutive was a step too familiar and unfairly comfortable sounding. It served to remind Mulder that the other man had spent longer with his little son than he himself had. "We call him William." It was an unreasonable thought to be voicing and Skinner was staring back at him, confused and awkward looking over the correction. Only a small part of Mulder was willing to accept that of course the boy had grown and developed his own identity in the ten years since he'd left his cradling, and that he no longer had a place, or 'say-so,' as the child might have worded it, to make any assumptions on what he was or wasn't called. However, those tiny sensitive understandings were quickly being swallowed up by his irrepressible need for control and position. What was worse, the path of his thoughts had led him once more to the difficult issue of William's surname.

"Right, William," echoed Skinner with a short but diplomatic nod and immediately tried to push them past the subject, "so as I was saying --"

"I wanna talk about his last name." Mulder moved a paper serviette from one side of his coffee cup to the other then tucked the disposable white stirrer into his palm. "Spender," he muttered and his hand squeezed around the ridge of plastic.

Skinner picked up his own cup and stared briefly into it, wishing he could forestall this particular conversation. "I can tell you as much as I know..." He lowered the cup without taking a sip, set his elbows on the table and brushed his palms together. "Mulder, you're not going to like this." He received a quick and sarcastic look and puffed air from his chest, realising too that it was a ridiculous warning to make after their talk on the Black Oil. However, the matter of William's surname was a muddy topic which he knew carried a hard and personal blow.

The story he relayed started with a shooting accident when William was a toddler. "His adoptive father--”

“Gabe van de Kamp,” rolled off Mulder.

Skinner nodded, “he was temporarily wheelchair bound. The land and his livelihood suffered. No proper insurance. The bank almost foreclosed on their farm." Skinner drank from his cup. "The rogue hunter never came forward." He glanced away from Mulder's sharp eyes, aware that his paranoia was already assuming foul play, and feeling that this time he couldn't be blamed for thinking the worst.

He expected Mulder to begin shooting accusations and so was surprised when he instead asked quietly, "did they lose the house?" The two fingers he'd touched to his lips twitched with guilt as he waited for an answer. Skinner shook his head quickly, strangely moved by the vulnerability that fatherhood had fixed in Mulder. It couldn't be doubted that his main concern was for the boy's welfare.

"No they kept the house. William was fine," he assured before going on to explain that the van de Kamps had received a sudden and very generous inheritance which resolved their financial problems and set them up for kinder times. "But thereafter the infant boy was...well, he was renamed."

Mulder said nothing but his fingers were tapping the table at morse-code speed. The series of events was like a barrel of snakes – a shudder-some ball of stories and secrets. He made a flinching look as this last tale became another stone around his neck. In the space of 24 hours he had learned his son was parentless and presently a ward of the State; he was the central suspect in a murder enquiry; he was a fugitive; he was potentially infected with the parasitic agent - Black Oil; there was evidence that William could move objects with his mind; and now to rub salt, the possibility of an ol’ chain-smoking fairy-godmother who remained a malignant, lurking presence even from beyond the grave.

Skinner went to take a call, or make a call. Mulder wasn’t really listening as to which. He’d spilt a lot of his coffee and was only now realising it. He grabbed a wad of paper napkins and wiped up the spill as he tried to regain control of his thoughts. Skinner had told him the orders were to approach William with caution, that he might present an infection - a cover story - as it were, to thwart any more tragedy.

“No autopsy’s been conducted. Can you get her in?” Mulder asked when he returned, looking for quick affirmation.

“Can I get her in?! Mulder, it’s not Gaga.” Skinner began shaking his head, “I don’t think...,” he false-started before pausing to rephrase his feelings more tactfully. “Are you sure it would be appropriate and prudent for her to be involved on that level?” His expression communicated that it damn well wasn’t.

Mulder gave a comfortable shrug. “You know how Scully gets over a dead body - it’s unholy.”

“And knowing that her son might be responsible for putting that dead body under her scalpel?” There were threads of red in the whites of Skinner's eyes.

"He didn't. You know he didn't," Mulder told him with an unsteady look. "Tomorrow’s good for her," he added a half-minute later. He glanced at some notes he'd made for himself on a paper napkin. "I'll probably talk to the dead guy's partner, his next of kin, anyone who was outside that night...someone the boy could’ve confided in..."  
  
“Mulder...,” Skinner interrupted with a bark and half his fist rapped the table. "I did not call the two of you here as investigators. You can't carry this...it's too..." He paused. It didn't look to him like Mulder was listening and so he leaned in heavily over the table. "Mulder, it's too personal." But still Mulder didn't look up or give any impression that he was registering Skinner's concerns. In fact, he was scratching out more thoughts on the reverse of the napkin and complaining about his pen. "Dammit!" he hissed, "you can't put this on HER!"

Mulder's eyes blinked suddenly on Skinner's. His face, an ash-brown colour under the awful diner lighting, turned defensive. Skinner had hen-pecked too close to the line and Mulder's cold stare was letting him know it.

"All right," the older man calmed in a mild tone. He didn't want to drop the matter but for the meantime he would elect to manoeuvre the discussion away from Scully. "But Mulder would you hear yourself? 'The dead guy's partner...the boy.'" Skinner shook his head, perturbed by his detached use of labels. He was worried about how much this was already affecting him. “Jacob Patnick,” supplied Skinner, “coached football and was taking Spanish classes at night school, left behind a young wife – Ruth. The suspect is a minor – 10 year old Will Spen--”

“I appreciate your concern,” Mulder cut in, but his expression communicated that, in this instance, he damn well didn’t.

Silence crept into the conversation again. Skinner looked like he was full of opinions but kept twisting his lips like he was physically restraining them. Mulder picked up on it with a sort of tolerant amusement and sat back in his chair. He listened as the older man hastily ordered a piece of pie and wondered if it was a diplomatic move to keep his mouth busy on chow down.

“You’ve both been through a lot – been through enough,” said Skinner as his fork cut through pie crust. “Things could get very messy. I'm just thinking about her wellbeing. About your own.”

Mulder looked back at him, reading between the lines of what was being said. His face fell solemn and his voice turned dog-leash tight. “I am not her FBI partner.”

It was the first time in their history together that Mulder wasn’t the one being checked and put in place but Walter Skinner instead.

“No,” the other man agreed. He looked uncomfortable for a moment – there was a lot weighted in those words. Skinner sighed, there was something serious on his mind and he needed to say it. “But if things haven’t been so...steady...for a while...then maybe now is a time to be extra vigilant.”

Mulder folded his arms. Skinner was trying to suggest – no, worse, remind him – that he had a turbulent relationship with Scully. And it floored him. He felt furious, indignant and sorely defensive until a pinball of reality sprang and rattled through him. He didn’t blink for several moments and he suddenly wore the look of someone riding a very small boat on a very high sea. In his head he heard echoes of the two of them shouting, he saw Scully’s face and she was just so sad; steamy shower water and a flash or two of heated sex; a dozen hangovers and even more hard floors; nights when she didn’t come home and nights when he didn’t; she talked on the phone a lot and in a very quiet voice.

“We’re fine,” Mulder croaked. Fine for two people trying to get by without their child, he thought to himself. There were always going to be lows between them, but there were some incredible highs. Mulder cleared his throat. He looked pissed. Under threat.

Skinner mumbled an apology but it wasn’t for speaking out of turn.

Mulder looked abruptly at his watch. It had gotten really late. “I gotta get home,” he said - neither to himself nor to Skinner. He dropped some bills onto the table. He was already looking at the door.

Skinner stared at him with a quietly amazed look. Mulder had said he needed to get home and it wasn’t something he’d muttered in confusion or error. 24 hours ago Mulder hadn’t even heard of this town. Skinner would bet he didn’t even know the name of his motel across the street and he would certainly locate his room through memory of its whereabouts instead of through knowledge of the room number. And yet he had this blind belief that home was close by.

The two of them and one car key – home; together and one motel key – home.

Mulder was giving Lisa a tea order. “Can I get a sandwich to take-away too? No white bread, no butter, no dressing, no salt...no nothing that will make it taste any good...yes I’m sure.” He dropped more bills onto the table.

"Mulder!" Skinner spoke up quickly. But he couldn't find the heart to tell him his very last thought. His throated squeezed. "I'll update you in the morning," was all he concluded.

Skinner watched him go. William wasn't the super-sticky-magic-happy glue that would fix Mulder and Scully. He understood more than most how devoted they remained to one another and he didn't doubt the rightness of that bond. But they were both highly dependent on the other, and while he sometimes saw that as profoundly loyal and loving, he also knew that it could be impairing. They'd both lost so much in their lives, experienced gruesome and inconceivable things. If a child had grown out of such nightmares - something as good and innocent as a baby - then he recognised the joy in that. Perhaps raising that baby would have reset the clock for them, helped them to heal and brought greater balance to their relationship. However the boy he'd encountered was broken in some of the worst ways imaginable. While he wished unreservedly for them to be reunited, he also reflected on how well three souls could weather and withstand their collective traumatisms.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

The Sundown Inn  
Grace  
Wyoming

 

They were moving at two very different paces. Scully felt like she'd been thrust from 0 - 60 whereas Mulder might have been cruising at a steady 40 all along. Had he really just been waiting for this day to arrive? She sat at the vanity and studied her face in the mirror. Dana Scully: unarmed and weepy. She redoubled her eye-liner.

Part of her still didn't want to accept that this boy could be her son. She felt so unprepared. Scully had constructed such pretty illusions for herself about William - creating stock pictures in her mind of him at kindergarten or at the beach. His Christmas tree would have one of those toy trains that circled the base. It would eat through the batteries but no one would complain because it was Christmas and William adored it. She liked to mentally leaf through these images when the grief and bitterness put her in a cold place. In her head she'd composed the best life imaginable for her child but now reality threatened to bulldoze right through those precious designs.

Sitting there in the faceless motel room brought back recollections of another life. There was fear and loneliness attached to those memories and it clouded the vanity like a smog, cloaking her with thoughts of anonymous nights in backwater towns between the shadows. Back then she had been ready, poised and trained for whatever was veiled in the darkness: for things that prowled and watched; scratched and scraped; hatched and fed; or infested...molested. Scully reached for a drink of water. Now the trench coat had become a white coat and the microscope swapped for stethoscope. She touched her hip but instead of a gun holster all she found was a really nice belt. Scully chastised herself. It wasn’t like she was returning to the field. But maybe a part of her was beginning to understand that their past had caught up with them, and that things would never be the same again.

She looked over at their primitive attempts to pack a suitcase. They had scarcely returned home from their retreat overseas when it was imperative that they leave again. Each suitcase still had an ill-assorted layer of vacation jumble that hadn't been properly sifted out and so they'd emptied out drawers, pushed and crammed clothes and other necessities onto a strange bed of bone-white shells, local coins, differently scaled maps and the array of logo stamped paraphernalia that Mulder had pilfered from around the resort. Their motel room in Wyoming now smelled like papayas and sunscreen lotion while the carpets were gritted with sugar coloured sand.

  
*****

  
The Cook Islands  
Oceania  
One week earlier...

 

Mulder had cast his shirt out to sea, kicked off a handsome pair of shoes, and thrown his only cufflinks at the moon. He sat cross-legged in the sand, stripped down to dress pants, a white vest and tanned feet. His silk tie was half pushed into one pocket and he was trying to mould sloppy sandcastles with trembling hands. "Children's hands are better for this," he whispered to the wind before taking another mouthful of liquor. His long fingers drew circles in the sand - a moat perhaps. He wondered what William's touch would be like. Precise, light and deft, answered his lonely thoughts.

Mulder flopped onto his back and looked up at the blurry stars. "I could take him," he threatened to the luminous lights as they bumped like dodgem cars against one another and spun in the sky. "It's only taking back what's already mine. Not even stealing - *recovering*." He moaned against his own self-seeking and destructive fantasies and twisted onto his side. His temple nestled into a pillow of sand and he licked the dry, salty grains from his lips.

"Scully?" he yelled seconds later and sat back up. He found his feet, clasped his bottle and smushed the ill-formed sandcastles flat as he moved across the beach.

She was more dressed than Mulder although her bare shoulders were chilled from having discarded her shrug somewhere near his shoes. The fine pins which held her hair so elegantly over the starter course lay sunken in tide-covered sand allowing the coastal winds to whip it into coppery ropes. Her lipstick had been wiped clean by the back of one hand and its red stain washed away on the cool waves.

"Scully??" He found her in the shallows of the water, the trim of her dress wet and clinging to her knees.

"You've brought me to Hell." She didn't turn to look at him, "5-star, palm-fringed, crystal clear-watered Hell."

Mulder scratched at something trying to bite his elbow, "Yeah I thought the Wifi would've been better here too."

"Mulder...," she warned.

He sighed heavily. "Because the alternative would have been you working back-to-back shifts, excavating your meals or whatever is you've been doing at the dinner table lately, traumatizing some poor intern, and Scully...," his voice softened a note, "...you falling to pieces later next month..."

"Don't doctor me, Mulder. It's insulting." He'd made a similar speech right before the tickets were booked. He'd dug in deep, argued that they needed to face the occasion and not bury it. Their son's 10th birthday marked a decade and the milestone of it had set everything off balance. He asked her to think of her patients; she wasn't being fair to them. He'd raised his voice when she wouldn't listen, again questioned her professionalism and then pushed the big, red button - malpractice. He didn't want it to take a lawsuit for her to realise that something was wrong. She'd never come closer to locking him in his study and erecting a For Sale sign out front. That...or a Wickerman.

Scully turned to him in the shallows of the water. "It's an island, Mulder. People always think they can escape to an island but you only take your problems and baggage with you, and it sits there in the sand in the pretty prison you thought was better than home."

He watched her sadly. After ten years, William was still breaking their hearts.


	8. Chapter 8

North Platte

Nebraska

 

William lay on the worn out backseat, his hot cheek resting against some loose stuffing. The heels of his battered boots clicked together as the car curved and bounced into an old rest stop. The man had only agreed to the boots since he said William’s white trash bare feet smelled worse than a fish tank. “Don’t need no clothes anyway,” the boy agreed before running through the overgrown driveway of his grandfather’s empty house to collect them. “I’ll just take what I need from clothes lines” – it had earned him a few more choice insults as they sped East. Now the car tyres crunched over grit and stones before coming to a hasty stop. The driver swung around, agitated that something might be wrong with the child, “you better not be sick. I am not wet nursing you." One wrist was hoisted in the direction of the front seat and a foreign thumb pushed against William’s pulse. The steering wheel was whacked. "Shit. Ok, we're gonna have to stop here while I see what this gas station's got."

He watched the man called Alex exit the Coupe and stalk, collar tucked up, in the direction of the half-lit store. He'd only spoken to William briefly that day and at times in a language that was unfamiliar to him. He used the same strange tongue on his cell phone, glancing at William as he spoke in a way which signalled to the boy he was being discussed. He contemplated the man carefully; he both simultaneously unnerved and fascinated William. He had a mature face not yet worn of its good looks and a ruddy complexion adaptable to any conditions. He smelled like black snow and wax crayons, jars opened from the backs of cupboards, metro tunnels and cobbled side streets the child had never visited. Something in the scent made William hunger for lamb cooked over hot coals with a splash of something stronger to see him off to sleep after. He was the brooding hero from dangerous Westerns. A man of mystery - one capable of carrying a revolver, and, in his dreams, a death rattle harmonica.

When the man later touched William's cheek it felt like cold plastic. He twisted around from the driver’s seat and pushed aspirin and sleeping pills across the boy's bottom lip. Did he want a drink of soda? William nodded and sat up a little better to accept the bottle.

"Are you going to hurt me?" he asked, more enquiring than scared sounding.

Krycek looked at him through the interior mirror. "Nyet."

He understood already that it meant no. "Wh-Where are we going?"

"Do you honestly care right now?"

William shook his head and lay back down. Blue eyes squeezed closed. His thoughts dwelled on good friendship and absent parents as the pills pulled him into a disturbed half-sleep. On a distant plane of consciousness, the car radio sang a vulnerable and wrenching ballad.

He'd passed his 10th birthday earlier that month. It was a difficult day clouded by the realisation that he'd spent the same number of years surviving the loss of his mom and dad than was spent with them alive. For the social charades and sugary Christian charity of his foster mother, a tea party had been inflicted upon him – over-fed kids he didn't know shoving and burping and boasting while Pammie eagerly showed off the new en-suite, “with glazed shower panels and tiled surround”.

She and Steve had quarrelled unpleasantly with one another in the kitchen, their voices low and sneering when William slipped past en route to the bathroom. He heard his own name being volleyed between them along with bitter accusations and reprehensions. Candles got stabbed into a cake. Later he endured a badly rehearsed magic show from the back row of lawn chairs. "What a waste of a rabbit," he whispered. If Connor had been there they could have put the thing in a nice stew. But his cousin was banned. The mere mention of that family name had Pammie reaching for her inhaler. William had so much potential. What was wrong with him? Didn't he want to learn clarinet like the Sherman twins across the street? Becky and Bobby were on the honour roll. Did he see the cute bumper sticker on their mother's car? Everyone else was happy to join in the Technicolor Dreamcoat song, why wasn’t he? DID HE PUT THE SALAMANDER IN HER NEW ENSUITE? Bored, William had emptied his behavior meds into the jello fruit salad pan and gone upstairs to roll under his bed.

Not long after 11pm he managed to escape, climbing through his bedroom window then edging down the slope of roofing tiles. Inside Pammie was listening to the David Hasselhoff Berlin Wall song while below on the porch Steve was making secret calls on his cell phone. He peered over the edge. *And* the man was standing on the Bronze-leaf Begonias - a crime which William had been denying for weeks. All Pammie would say was that, "lies killed fairies." He listened to the night for a few minutes, focussing on a raccoon rustling through the trash and not Steve’s heavy whispers.

The best thing about the Sherman twins was that they each had real fast bikes and stupid-easy combination locks and William had helped himself to one for the journey along to Beeswing. His grandfather's old home was cold and creaking. The front door had weathered quickly and the coat of paint William had applied the previous summer was flaking worse than a skin disease. A flashlight was waiting for him when he slipped inside but it wasn't needed. No one knew this house in the dark like he did. The air had a stale bitterness to it and he could detect the smell of stagnant water coming from the kitchen drain. He imagined his foster mother would need revived with her potpurri if she stepped in there.

William was naturally reminded of his Grandpappy - a bear hug waiting in a jaggy woollen sweater. As he climbed the stairs he ran his sleeve up the banister to remove the film of dust. He remembered lamp light, spaghetti westerns, Ennio Morricone and cigars kept for best, and tried to forget the last winter spent living together when the man's degenerative disease had advanced. "My name's Will," the puzzled child had tried to correct when first called 'Victor Charlie'. In the weeks and months that followed, the dark haired, petite-framed boy was periodically charged with being a Viet Cong spy and terrorized to the other end of the building. William counted the last of the 14 steep steps, reminded that he was always safe at the top of the house where the sweet, senile old man couldn't climb. His body sagged on the final stair. He did not want to cry today.

Connor - denim shorts and cowboy boots, was stamping on some nasty crawly thing when he reached his old bedroom. "Happy birthday!" his younger cousin grinned through a recent split lip. Ten burning candles, all pinched from church, had been placed around the small room - he grinned. Soon they were cross-legged on a thick blanket enjoying a midnight supper of salted beef and London Dry. "Wait. You had to wear a dickie bow??"

William was now starting to smile about it, at least he was making Connor laugh, and as he glanced again at his cousin’s sore lip, he realised just how good a thing that was. "Oh you didn't see the cake - 'Happy Birthday Bill'. Gluten-free and dairy-free of course for Pammie's sister - every kid's favourite." They both laughed like a drain. William was first to sober, his smile slipping. He swallowed a piece of meat and poured himself a heavy drop of Gin. "Steve's having an affair. He's ch-cheating on her."

Connor stopped laughing and looked at him for a long moment. "I'm so sorry."

"It's because of m-me. They don't think taking me in was a good idea. I heard them." He slowly licked the taste of salt and spirits from his lips.

"Will, that's bullshit." His thin shoulder was gripped in a small brown hand and rocked but there was no soothing him in that moment. He looked tangled up in bad thoughts and burdened with anger and hurt. "How cold do you have to get in here," he tapped where he thought his heart was, "before you can get rid of a kid? Before you're able to subtract a baby from your life and just stop...listening?"

Connor dipped a hunk of bread in the Gin and bad water mix and let him talk. This wasn't about Steve and Pammie anymore.

"Joey Dietz at school has an open adoption...letters, pictures, visits...last summer his birth family even took him camping...” The comparison was difficult for William; it planted a bitter seed and made his chest heavy. His own adoption was closed – sealed tight, a forgotten secret...something practiced more in the olden days. He took a gulp from his tin cup and spluttered until Connor had to beat between his shoulder blades. “I'm 10 today - I turned double digits. And what was I thinking? That they'd really send a card...or know or care?” He shook his head to banish the foolish thought. “I'm another year farther away, one more inch too big for their arms..." He looked at the fading height chart scored on the wall by his grandfather. "If I'm a ghost to them now then I hope I haunt every pretty view, slow every rain-shower, dull their favourite meals and chill the blankets at night."

Connor's nose wrinkled. Bland chicken and cold feet in bed sure sounded sucky. "You're s'posed to make wishes on your birthday, not curses." William was already blowing out some of the tall white candles. "But you'll show ‘em, Will." It was what he wanted to hear. "Or should I say *Bill*. Billy-boy, Billy-boy."

"Oh fuck you. I'm gonna get you now." A quick Chinese burn was applied until his cousin yelped, apologised and laughed.

"Hey, I got you a gift. Or, I mean, I found you one." Connor offered a narrow package crudely tied with string to cheer him up. As William chewed down his meat and unwrapped it, the child explained for him, "Uncle Jack has a box of stuff he took from your folks' home after the fire." This wasn't new knowledge for William who hated Jackie McRae almost as much as Connor did. He guessed it was mostly figurines and pottery that he'd looted - nothing of much value or else it would've been sold on by now. "I went hunting and discovered this..."

A slender steel barrel the length of a wrench handle opened onto William's lap. "Huh," he carefully picked up the polished metal tube and looked quizzically at it.

"It's got your name, right there, in bitty engraving, you see it?" He did. Spender.

"I think it's a pen...," continued Connor as they both studied the object, "but it don't write. Sorry." The younger child looked a little embarrassed, maybe the present had been a bad choice. But then, sensing it in the mouldy cardboard box had felt so right and while other eyes and fingers might never have discovered it, the cylindrical tool had sort of presented itself to Connor.

William pushed at the little button switch on one side trying to activate it. Nothing happened. "Yeah it's jammed up or something," agreed Connor who had already tried. "Ash I'll bet."

They both tried digging pins, pencil ends and small finger nails into the blocked push-button. Ten minutes later a splinter of matchstick did the trick but it wasn't a pen nib that appeared as Connor had guessed. The device made a swift 'pffft' sound and an ice-pick blade was rapidly released from the automatic spring.

William dropped it onto the blanket. Connor shuffled back.

"Dude, you got me a knife." The two children stared down at the weapon. William tried to ignore the fact that one of them could have been seriously injured and crouched down beside the unusual dagger smiling. The metal, which he'd originally thought was stainless steel like dinner cutlery, suddenly seemed strange to him. In his palm, when he lifted it again, the material felt different and his fingers tingled faintly. He contemplated it with solemn wonder. How could something so strange feel that at home in his grasp? His mom and dad would not have owned something like this. What was more, no way would it have been inscribed with William's surname and not their own. "What does it mean?" he whispered to himself. When he turned to Connor his face was thoughtful and serious. The youngster grinned back regardless. His cousin knew - William liked it.

On the back seat of the Ford Coupe, a vintage leather jacket thudded over his curled body. The child stirred under its new weight, "I'll show them," he whispered drowsily and his small hand dipped inside one boot to where the stiletto-bladed dagger was concealed with duct tape.

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see, Alex Krycek is alive and well. I figure if Chris Carter can bring the CSM back then I can use my favorite sexy villain, Krycek!
> 
> Let me know what you think, all helpful feedback is appreciated.


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